Firey’s Pairing Counseling
by Firey Chronicles
Summary: BalthierVaan SI. Vaan complains to a counselor how he hates being...
1. Vaan

Firey's Pairing Counseling - Vaan

Vaan is tired to be stuck on the bottom of a _guy_'s bed, the sky pirate Balthier to be exact. He could not for the life of him figure out _why_. So he finally decided to go see a pairing counselor. But little did he know that he is merely going to be used as another fan material.

Everything started great. Nice and usual therapy stuff; Vaan lying on the couch and a counselor/authoress beside him willing to hear his complaints.

"Why am I always paired with Balthier? I'm actually paired with him more than I do with Penelo or the other two main female characters! And why am I always the one being the ignorant blushing boy in Balthier's arms?" Vaan blunts it out after a few minutes.

Firey, elbow popped on her cheek, a clipboard for doodling rather than taking notes, obviously bored. "Because Vaan, you and Balthier are the third most popular pairing in final fantasy XII, after Balthier/Fran, and Balthier/Ashe. I actually used a search engine and checked that."

Vaan stares at the ceiling. "But how do you know if I like women or men better? How do you know I won't like Penelo?"

"The thing is, we don't. It's the fandom. Get over it. Be happy FFXII is not that popular compared to other final fantasy games. 600 or so stories. From the looks of the DS FFXII revenant wings, looks like you and Penelo are the official pairing. Except fandom don't _CARE_. Look at Sephy/Cloud, do the 'official' Cloud want to be with Sephiroth? Nope. He'd be paired with Aeris or Tifa. _BUT the fandom_ think they are cuter."

"I am not blushy! Or helpless!" he rises from the couch "And aren't you suppose to help me?"

"No, I may currently be acting as a counselor, but I'm also a member of the fandoms. I can do whatever I want. I am merely providing you with the _truth_."

"Okay?" He lies back down "Why Balthier out of all people?"

"Because…" She sighed, as if she's trying to explain to a child how one plus one does not equal to three. "You are an uke." She said this bluntly "If it makes you any happier, you and Penelo is fifth popular. As of June 2007 at any rate."

"Why me?" To firey, this comment sounded like a 7 year old complaining to her mother who he must go to school.

"In anime and manga, especially shounen-ai, yaoi and hentai, uke is a general term for a partner in a relationship who is predominantly bottom and/or The equivalent for top is seme. The classic guidelines establish the uke by appearance (shorter than the seme, more childish, mostly light-haired, cute faces, effeminate) in relation to the 'dom' seme's appearance (taller, more masculine, older), often regardless of the characters' personality." The authoress quotes from wikipedia.

Vaan: pulls out his fingers and counts "shorter than the seme, younger, more childish, mostly light-haired, cute faces, more effeminate…. Wait a minute…" he looks up in a frown.

"Exactly." Firey pats Vaan in the head, and tries not to laugh "You fall under all those."

" I am NOT effeminate!"

"Compared to Balthier, Yes, you are."

Vaan: sobs

Firey tries very VERY hard not to laugh, facial expression failing miserably. '_You are a Baaadd counselor'_ she thought.

"Then how come…" Vaan starts. '_I'm doing to die in eternal embarrassment for saying this'_ "not Basch, Vossler, or Larsa?"

She shrugs "Because Balthier is the leading man. And you're the most uke. Basch/Balthier? Eww, dude, Basch is totally too muscular." She grimace and waves the image aside. "Baschxyou is bad enough. Most anime/manga fans do not like muscular dudes."

"Take Larsa!" He waves his hand frantically around to try and get the point across. "Or anybody… wait doesn't Balthier like women?"

Firey smirks "it's not that simple Vaan," wags my index finger at him "you and Balthier are _Hinted_. "

Vaan froms an o with his mouth. "huh? It _IS_?" As if this is news to us fans.

"yea, I'm currently in the tomb of Raithwall so I don't know much. When you and Balthier just met, he grabs you in the stomach and lifts you up, in the Nalbina Dungeons, he fights with you for the three ugly pigs or whatever. The fact that you want to be a sky pirate also adds to fan material. Plus, FFXII characters are underdeveloped, so they are pretty much open to interpretations."

"But I'm not effeminate"

" I guess not, since you are kinda muscular and all, you are type 1 and 3. Type 1 applies to all ukes, usually." She whips out a pointer from under her sleeves and magically summon out a whiteboard.

XDDDDDDDDDD

Firey's education to Vaan, Types of Ukes quoted from wikipedia

1. There are many different "styles" of ukes that are used in anime and manga: Ukes are usually seen as a younger characters who are shorter, younger, or otherwise have an appearance slightly more "cuddly" than handsome. Shuichi from Gravitation and Naruto from Naruto is a typical example of a character with uke overtones.

2. Another uke style is the depressing uke. They are usually dark and short, and prone to having to worst luck in life. They cry, and are usually antisocial from large groups of people. They might even resort to cutting their own wrists or other forms of self harm to 'let out emotion'. In fan writings and other fandoms, Naruto's Sasuke, or Fruits Basket's Yuki and Kyo are often paired with either being placed as the uke. But both can be classified as a depressing uke. The self-sacrificing Kurama from YuYu Hakusho, would fall into this category when placed as an uke (mostly under the "personality/American" definition of an uke), or, when following the "Height Rule", his popular fandom boyfriend Hiei would also fit this category.

3. A popular uke "style" is the rebellious uke. They are slightly taller and more mature than the above placed uke, and usually have a fiery temper. When in involved in a reationship, their seme makes it clear who's in charge and this doesn't sit well with this particular uke. They rave and protest, demanding to be the seme and not the uke. They refuse to admit that they are sometimes adorable, or have a soft spot for something a little less 'manly'. For fan-based pairings in Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward Elric is usually considered this type of uke.

4. Another Uke style is a more "girly" boy. eg. Kim JaeJoong from TVXQ is considered an uke because of his girlish looks as opposed to Jung Yunho who is cast as a seme because of his masculinity in the fanpairing "Jaeho".

XDDDDDDDDDDD

Firey grins "Do you want to hear any more?"

Vaan gave an adorable uke material pout. "Why is not Yuri more popular?" He is grasping straws.

"Because, the fandoms are dominated my 98 girls, unofficial studies have shown. And we like yaoi," vampire teeth suddenly became visible from the authoress' grin "me including of course. Any more questions?"

Vaan squeaks, he suddenly sweats like hell even though the room temperature is moderate "N-no I-I'm fine." He stammers, and bolts for the nearest door pressing R2 button.

Firey laughs out loud like the antagonist villain "Next!" She whips out a glass of gin and takes a long slip.

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Muhahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so evil! LAMO. PLEASE REVIEW. Little humor of mine before finishing up an English project.

I grade popularity by number of fics written so I just used the search engine (it's an estimate because sometimes it has nothing to do with pairings or whatever)

1. Balthier Fran 82

2. Balthier Ashe 66

3. Balthier Vaan 51

4. Larsa Penelo 48

5. Vaan Penelo 46

6. Basch Ashe 34

lol! I was bored and I came up with this! Do you guys want more?


	2. Balthier

Firey's Pairing Counseling – Balthier

The sun is shining beautifully outside the office window, the birds are chirping, and the distant laughter of children rings in the air, welcoming everyone to play in the beautiful weather. But young Firey Chronicles is oblivious to its calls, no, she is sitting in front of the TV indulged in Final Fantasy XII and blasting monsters back in to digital numbers – or in this case, working as a counselor in Rabanastre.

Knock. Knock.

"Come in." She called. The environment once again magically puffed back into the old counseling room.

"Hello," In walks Balthier with a troubled expression. "I heard your reputation as a member of fandom, so I'd like to clarify a few things." He grabs a chair and sits down.

"Oh good," Firey reached for her doodling pad. "At least I don't have to explain my role to you like Vaan."

Balthier paused. "_Vaan?_" He gave a nervous glance.

She looked up from her desk. "Yes, he just came last week. If I'd known any better, I'd say you came for the same issue, am I correct?"

"Y-yes."

"Well let's get down to business." She makes a gesture. "Spill the beans."

"From the way you acts, you're not an professional." Balthier frowns.

"I know," Firey grimaces "I should have called my profession lawyers or informers or something. I'm only doing this of because of this fic."

"This fic?" Like Vaan he doesn't know this is just another fic also.

"Never you mind. Do go on please."

Balthier sighed and put his face in his hands. "It's like this, I know I'm popular in this fandom. And fans and making me paired with Fran and Ashe and all, although I prefer not to be tied down to anyone if you know what I mean… but _Vaan_? He's a, he is a _male_. I'm being paired with him more than I do with Penelo."

"Well, I don't know about your fics with Fran and Ashe because I only read a few of them. But one thing's for sure; your popularity is completely your fault." She smirked as Balthier gaped. "You call yourself the leading man. You being the sky pirate and the only playable character with charismatic looks and attitudes, Haha. Girls dig you. At least… one of my friends does. Of course you being the handsome man and all, some fans dig you with other _guys_."

"But that's completely against my belief!"

"Tsk, tsk" She waved her forefinger, "You should know… it's not about you, it's about the fandom!"

"but,"

"It's the down side of popularity. Everything has a price dear,"

"And I have no way to escape it?"

"No, not unless you go unpopular, which is too late now." She grinned. "Come to think of it, the whole pairing thing with you and Vaan is completely your fault. The top three, according to my judgment, is taken by you! Just wait until Vaan finds out, I'm sure he'll attempt to kill you." She did the evil laugh.

He shuddered at the image of Vaan going berserk and charging at him with the Zodiac Spear, which is able to fell him in one shot. Even though he and Vaan (and Fran) are both level 55, Zodiac Spear has advantage of 60 attack points compared to Deathbringers. They both have the same attack points, and even though Balthier is 1 point faster than Vaan, the boy has much more magical potential then him and even the viera. (everything is according to my game play, I don't know about Ashe, but most likely she has the best magick out of the group)

"So… where are you now?"

He snapped out of his thought, "Almost finished the great crystal, just in front of the last boss."

"sigh, all the BalthierVaan hints ended before the Leviathan!" she gave another exasperated sigh, "There is pretty much no character development in this story at ALL. The only good thing is that everything is open to interpretations."

"…Are you a--"

"You know Basch?"

"Yeah?" Her quick attempt to change the topic did not go unnoticed by the cunning pirate, although her last remark made him quite nervous.

"If either one of you didn't exist, the replacement will be Basch."

"What do you mean? Vaan and Basch? Or me and-"

"Both, in your case you will become an uke."

He can't help but gag. Basch …and he? He, the great sky pirate, become an uke?

"It can't be helped, some people HATE het pairings, so they always had to make a yaoi pairing in every fandom. Personally I go for the cutest and not sappiest." Firey gigged. "If not Basch, then… Vossler, or Larsa"

"Larsa?"

"Ya"

He made no move to question further.

"Well, since I am your pairing counselor, I might as well as educate you (and the fans) about seme."

Just like previously, she magically summons are white board out of thin air. (chalky black board does not agree with Firey) (Materials quoted from wikipedia of course) "You might as well learn them right?"

(Just go back to the previous chapter and think everything opposite of Vaan XDDD)

"And this is all according to…"

"The fans, unless you would rather have Basch…"

Balthier reads the stuff in absolute horror. There is no fing way that he's going be an uke.

"You sure you want Vaan gone?" She started writing a note in her clip board. "Well, if you're sure of becoming an uke, then I'll go tell the yaoi FFXII committee to find…"

He jumped, "No no, I'm absolutely fine." The thought of him becoming an uke is _beyond _horror. "In fact, you have solved all my problems. Thank you for your time, and I'll be leaving right this minute."

He quickly shut the door behind him.

Firey smiled evilly. There is no such thing as FFXII Yaoi Committee, she knew very well. For once she done her job right rather than scare them away. At least one of them will be content about their fate – even though it's through oppression. Now back to video gaming.

WMWMWMWMWMW

No doubt he rather stick with the current situation rather than making it worse. And without a doubt that counselor is definitely in favor of he and Vaan being together.

It's already too late to ruin his own reputation, he thought. All he can do is make sure the uke never finds out that it's 'partly' his fault that the boy is in their situation – and still in this situation. But just in case the boy ever knows about the truth, to avoid the death match that Balthier is smart enough to get out of, the next time he gets stuck in bed with Vaan, he's definitely going to steal the goddamn spear. He's even going to take extra measure to 'borrow' the dawn shard to suck up all of Vaan's magick points.

Ukes are supposed to be vulnerable… right? Balthier reasoned.

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Hehe, it's super late, but please REVIEW. Tip to yaoi writers, when you guys put pairings in your summaries, like **BalthierxVaan, ALWAYS put the SEME before the UKE**. Otherwise, some readers will get confused. (According to one of my friend, NarutoxSasuke is driving her nuts XDDD)

Oh yeah, I probably have at least one more chapter left!


End file.
